Outdoor passions/adventures? Skiing in the winter, backpacking and fly fishing in the summers

Most memorable outdoors experience? After graduating from the University of Colorado, my good friend Jon Rosen and I backpacked Europe. During the trip, we visited Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean, which had an amazing backcountry hut system. We hiked the island, staying in these huts while we enjoyed the company of French mountaineers and enjoyed the scenery of the beautiful island.

How long have you been with Diamond Peaks Ski Patrol? I am a newbie but have seven years of ski patrolling experience at Copper Mountain. I recently moved down here from Leadville. I plan on doing most of my skiing on Cameron Pass, so I figured if I was up there skiing and somebody had an accident, I would like to help.

You worked as an avalanche forecaster; what does one do for that job? Basically, I would monitor snowpack by digging snow pits and testing the snowpack at different elevations and aspects on a daily basis, looking for instabilities. I would also watch weather forecast and real-time weather information to determine future snowpack instabilities. When these instabilities existed, I would help organize a team to go perform avalanche mitigation work. This entailed ski cutting, cornice removal and explosives to remove any avalanche hazard and open the powder skiing to the guests.

And you trained your own avalanche dog. What’s the dog’s name? Yes, I have a 6-year-old chocolate Lab named Scout. My wife and I have been training him since he was 8 weeks old. We’ve been certified for three years with the Colorado Rapid Avalanche Deployment (C-RAD) Program and have both flown in the Flight for Life helicopter three times for training purposes.

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What roles do dogs play in search and rescue missions? Dogs have many purposes in search and rescue. They can be used for avalanche rescue, wilderness rescue, water rescue, as well as many other purposes. Scout is only trained for avalanche rescue. Avalanche rescue dogs are the best resource we have for finding somebody buried in an avalanche who is not wearing an avalanche transceiver. They can sniff out the person buried and alert to their location very quickly.

Any close calls with avalanches personally? I have definitely had some eye-opening experiences working and playing in avalanche terrain for the last seven years. One really comes to mind after reading about the Aspen Meadows ski patroller death on Dec. 24. I was on a snow safety route and my partner and I threw two explosives on this rocky face. After the charges went off, the entire slope pulled out 6 to 8 feet deep and wider than any previous historical slide records for the slide path. The slide tore through what was a previously established “safe zone” based on the slide path’s history and shape. If we didn’t get results on the first two shots and hadn’t continued down the slope to our “safe zone,” that avalanche could have pushed us over rocky cliffs. Needless to say, that is no longer an established “safe zone.” A snowpack can be very tricky and unpredictable sometimes.

If you could ride a chairlift with any person (from history or alive) who would it be? I think it wouldn’t be a chairlift ride, but a heli-ride with (deceased extreme skier) Doug Coombs.

The Coloradoan is looking for people who are adventurous in the outdoors to be featured in Sunday’s Xplore section for the Q&A. The Q&A highlights people from Northern Colorado and the surrounding area who get their kicks playing outside. To nominate a person or yourself, send submissions to Stephen Meyers@coloradoan.com.